At least 40 people were dead in Mexico after drinking methanol, the latest in a series of mass bad-alcohol poisonings since the country banned beer sales and many towns banned the sale of liquor.
In the township of Chiconcuautla in Puebla state, Mayor Artemio Hernndez said on Wednesday that at least 18 people had died of presumed methanol poisoning, but the city’s Facebook page put the number at 25.
In late April, 25 people died in the state of Jalisco after drinking a cheap brand of cane alcohol known as “El Chorrito”.
According to local media, another seven people died of methanol poisoning recently in the Yucatán village of Acanceh, but authorities did not immediately respond to requests for information to confirm that incident.
Such large-scale funerals have supposedly been prohibited under social distancing measures aimed at fighting the pandemic.
And in Morelos state, south of Mexico City, inspectors seized four five-gallon (20-liter) jugs of unlabeled alcohol that was believed to be the cause of 15 poisoning deaths in the hamlet of Telixtac and a nearby town. The dead were 14 men and one woman.
The two incidents were just the latest mass poisonings.
It is still unclear that if the poisonings are related to the new coronavirus lockdowns.
Beer production in Mexico was halted more than a month ago as health officials declared brewing a “non-essential” activity.
Earlier on Tuesday, the foreign ministry said that Mexico has been in talks with the US and Canada to address common challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mexico was jolted on Tuesday when it confirmed 1,997 new cases of coronavirus along with 353 additional deaths – the most deadly day since the pandemic began.
Mexico declared a national health emergency at the end of March in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the country has, to date, registered 40,186 cases and 4,220 deaths on Wednesday.
(With inputs from agency)